C-Store Leaders Talk Hiring, Mobile Ordering, More

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — The convenience-store industry has initiated many changes over the past year and a half amid the COVID-19 pandemic. From adding mobile ordering and delivery options to creating a more diverse leadership team to grappling with hiring challenges, the top chains have rethought how business is done.

Mitch Morrison, vice president of retailer relations at Winsight Media, spoke to three retailers at Winsight Media’s Outlook Leadership Conference in August in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Tom Brennan, CMO at Casey’s General Stores; George Fournier, president of EG America; and Natalie Morhous, president of RaceTrac Petroleum, gave their insights on the future of convenience and what’s working for their businesses.

Click through to read highlights from each of these executives …

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many c-stores chains to accelerate their plans for mobile ordering and delivery, but for Atlanta-based RaceTrac, it’s still a small percent of its overall transactions, Morhous said.

She said she was proud of how nimble RaceTrac was in reacting to the pandemic, quickly creating alternative ways for consumers to shop. When the company launched mobile ordering, it was incredibly rudimentary, she said, with a basic menu and a tile in RaceTrac’s application that took customers out of the app to actually do their online ordering.

At first, Morhous said, she thought, “It’s got to be Starbucks if we launch mobile ordering,” referring to the company’s advanced and easy-to-use app. “And the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t,” she said.

Morhous said she learned that RaceTrac could do a lot quickly and somewhat inexpensively to learn and then evolve that offer. “COVID accelerated our entry into that market, which I think is a wonderful thing, and we’ve basically taken permission to fail, and we’ve grown and innovated and improved that user experience as time has gone on,” she said.

One challengethat Fournier said EG America, Westborough, Mass., is constantly talking about is the labor shortage.

“It’s brutal,” Fournier said of recruitment and retention during the pandemic.

Companies can’t market with the same hiring strategies everywhere, he said. It can vary by geographies and factors like what the competition is like in the area. That may change how a company incentivizes people to work.

“The other thing that’s difficult is you’re trying to do all these things to incentivize people to come to work for you, but you can’t forget about all the people that are working for your currently,” he said.

Fournier said if a retailer is offering a starting bonus to new hires, they should make sure to also think about providing a bonus to those already working for the company, and be conscious of what message they are sending to your employees.

EG America is going through the work now of building its culture, or the guiding principles on how people treat each other at work. The process takes time, though, he said.

“We’re just going through all that foundational work to make sure that our team understands the importance of having values, the importance of culture, because that’s how we’re going to live,” Fournier said. “It’s how we’re going to hire. It’s going to be how we promote.”

Even before the pandemic and social justice movements that accelerated last summer, Casey’s, Ankeny, Iowa, has been expanding its leadership team. Casey’s has made several changes since Darren Rebelez took over as CEO in June 2019 from the retiring Terry Handley.

Brennan said Rebelez is the first non-Iowan CEO in the company’s history.

“It’s been incredible to bring the team together over the last couple of years, and I think you’re seeing it in our results,” Brennan said.

Having leaders from different backgrounds and experiences in other industries helps them see problems through a different lens, he said.

“When you bring all those different experiences together, you’re able to get, I think, the most robust dialogue, and conversation and debate about how we should act and move forward,” Brennan said.

Not only does diversity make the leadership team stronger, but it also reflects Casey’s stores and general customer base, too, he said.